


The Tor

by feignedsobriquet, Rise Up Ting Ting Like Glitter (Wiggle)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Blink and you'll miss them:, Crack Played Straight, Curses, Getting Together, Kamala Khan - Freeform, Language Barrier, M/M, Magic, Monica Rambeau - Freeform, Temporary extreme power dynamics, Tony in chains, accidental handfeeding, also gay, but respecting his boundaries, canon typical levels of violence, crushing on that cute boy you have in chains, dehydration aftercare, eventual kinky times in unkinky places, i slipped and fed him my snake meat is not a euphemism, one mans search for pants, probably unrealistic depictions of heat exhaustion and dehydration, very straight, we found love in pantless place
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:34:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29356548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feignedsobriquet/pseuds/feignedsobriquet, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wiggle/pseuds/Rise%20Up%20Ting%20Ting%20Like%20Glitter
Summary: Tony Stark has a mission. He needs to find Natasha, save as many people as he can from the war that Stane and his lighteaters bring, and occupy and defend the ancient stronghold of Stark Tower. It would be nice if he could keep his own secrets while he's at it.Bucky Barnes has a task. The Speaker of the Signs has predicted calamity. Bucky must round up all the wandering Eild and bring them to the Tor. His cursed arm, mouthy second-in-command, and pretty brown-eyed prisoner are all set on making that impossible.Failure for either of them means death, but at least there's plenty of heroics, wardrobe malfunctions, and sexual tension on the way.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 21
Kudos: 55
Collections: Marvel Reverse Big Bang 2020





	1. A Surprise in the Wasteland

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feignedsobriquet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feignedsobriquet/gifts).



> The Glorious and Amazing [FeignedSobriquet](https://feignedsobriquet.tumblr.com) has put up with me for the entirety of this journey, and deserves a MEDAL. Also her art is To. DIE. For.  
> The incomparbale [HDDNONE](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenOne)weathered the woes of my doubts and editing nightmares and scrubbed this fic until it shines.  
> They are MAGNIFICENT.
> 
> Also, you owe them both for this fic not being Titled: Pants Pants Revolution
> 
> For the Marvel Reverse Big Bang 20 _cough_ 20

**A Body in the Sand**

A fan of blood splattered from the body's mouth, dry and black across the desiccated red earth. Hard, cracked dirt drilled into the tensed ball of Tony’s foot as he drew back into the meagre shade of the ancient trebuchet that had drawn him to this spot.

Overhead, the sun scorched through its zenith, and broken wasteland stretched into the horizon. Out of the corner of his eye, if his head tilted into the wrong angle, pearlescent hints reflected off the corpse’s skin. Stepping away from the rotted out hulk of the war machine, Tony forced one foot forward. The high collar of his jacket scratched at his neck, all the sweat it had absorbed long cooked away, and Tony had no more to give. His trudging footsteps faltered. The body lay at his feet.

Pressed into its bare flesh, overlapping and greedy, were the silver handprint scars of lighteating.

Spinning back to the trebuchet, Tony scrabbled through the places the old wood had grown weak and hollow. He couldn’t puke over a little lighteating, the moisture loss might kill him. “Where is it? Where is it?” His hands slipped and skidded, twice disturbing abandoned snake nests before closing around the promised bundle. 

It wasn’t her. Tony clutched at the wadded up parcel of his disguise. Natasha was late in returning, but she’d been here. Even for a spymaster of her skill, the shape and colouring were all wrong. The body wasn’t hers, she was okay, and had done her job. Now he had to do his.

Tony stripped. His jacket shucked easily, but the wool of his breeches and the linen of his shirt clung with the last of his sweat. Something scraped over the dead earth and Tony spun, hands covering the starburst insignia at the centre of his chest. No new shadows stretched across the ground, and no new sounds reached his ears. He waited, time scratching over him, but nothing moved. Turning back, he shoved his old clothes into the hole and dragged the new shirt over his head. Overlarge, white and befouled, it fell to land mid thigh. The neck low and loose, barely covering the mark that had crawled across his chest since childhood. He’d have to be careful.

For a breath, the shirt was cool. Tony tipped his head back into the shade and closed his eyes, ignoring the pants and shoes that waited in the war machine. A reluctant breeze stirred loose dirt and sand into half-hearted motion and he tilted his face to catch it and the new hint of shadow that came with it.

A spear pressed into his neck. 

He’d been found.

———

**A Surprise Most Unwelcome**

Two weeks. Bucky squatted in the wasted red sand of the Scar. Two weeks to cover the war ravaged wasteland, the plains to the west, and the rich Bonell woods to the south, rounding up and escorting every scattered member of the Eild to the Tor. 

It wasn’t enough. The sand beneath his feet was thin, barely covering the magic blasted earth beneath it. They were skirting too close to the Blasted Rim. Bucky shifted the skull fused to his shoulder, trying to relieve an itch. It looked like a horse's head, if you ignored the teeth that ran a hungry jagged line from the skull’s ‘nose’ to the end of its upper jaw—the teeth that pressed into his flesh in warning.

Bucky dug his fingers into the sparse sand as the itch deepened. The monstrous, semi-sentient beast growing out of his arm had been more active and violent since leaving home, the lush valley tucked into the apex of the Scar. It trembled at their proximity to the Rim, the epicentre of the magical incident that devastated this once teeming valley into an unnatural blight. 

He let the sand strain through his fingers. Sharon would be all right. A single Eild, lightly armed and moving swiftly, should draw no attention. If there was something in the Rim that the skull knew about and they didn’t, Sharon would find it. And if it was the calamity the Speaker had predicted, the danger great enough to pull all the clans of the Eild together, then they would be ready.

Rock and sand trembled across the desert floor. He blinked. A rippling snap split the air, and the vibrating escalated. A single breath in and the ground convulsed, cracking in a massive heave.

"Son of a bitch." Loose sand dragged at his heels as he lunged for his sling-armed pack and pressed himself into a sprint. "Remnant!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, losing his footing against the bucking terrain. The teeth that ran down his arm scraped along his flesh, leaching fresh blood and leaking satisfaction.

Before he could get his feet under him a second time, the sand parted and parted further still. A long silver line appeared, broken in places by solid ground. Shit.

The silver line surged, exploding sand and rock into the air. Crouching, he threw his arm up, using the skull on his shoulder and the smaller bones clustered beneath to shield himself. Rock chips and sand plinked against his cursed arm. A vindictive sort of pleasure filled him when a saddle sized rock took the skull in the eye. Until the snake broke free to tower over him.

"Shit. Shit shit." Bucky shoved himself to his feet, and the world narrowed down to basic mathematics. Forty-five feet in one direction lay the snake and his death, and an unknown distance in the opposite direction lay his death and the deaths of his hunters. Harley was too young, Monica had just taken up medicine, and Kamala could make the world laugh. Every one of them was family, the only members of the Eild who did not share blood with him that still trusted him.

The math was easy.

The beast was enormous, mutated wildly beyond the normal size of its sand viper kin and vicious to the point of insanity. It was a remnant, forgotten and dormant since the war. And Bucky ran towards it. Forty-five feet became thirty, became ten. His arm ached to be used. His weak human instincts screamed to run the other way. Fresh blood seeped from the skull’s teeth. He dropped his pack and pulled his knife free—eight inches of steel with a curved edge and a clip point. A toothpick. Bucky was going to die. 

He hoped the snake choked on his corpse.

Like a giant prowler cat faced with a charging mouse, the snake reared higher. A sharp arc of metal teased from where it had lain hidden beneath sand and monster. Molten in the raging desert sun, only one metal burned like that, _ranium_. Bucky'd had an arrowhead with ranium edging once. It never failed to bring down its prey, and despite its size had doubled as a belt knife. He'd once killed an Auri Beast with nothing but his hands and the arrowhead snapped clear of its shaft. A rocky cliffside claimed the arrowhead after it shot clean through an elk and lodged too deep to recover.

This was much larger.

Bucky pushed himself faster, re-sheathed the knife, and threw himself into a skid, knees first. Grasping the metal, he tugged and almost jerked out of his trajectory. His momentum kept him on track, but the unexpected size of the curving metal compromised his aim. Not a weapon, but a _shield,_ glanced across the beast’s hand sized scales.

His coast through the sand ground to a stop a foot beyond the enormous girth of the viper. It was wider around than the giant willows in the valley, and it bulged even wider as it screamed its rage into the sky. Bucky bent, crushed under the sound, and covered his ears. The shield nestled in his lap, wet with blood, carrying the twisted remains of several scales.

The serpent’s cry dug into Bucky’s ears, and his mouth hung open on a scream of his own, spittle and sweat flecking the bloody metal in his lap.

"Bucky!" Harley crested the ridge at the head of the racing hunters. The snake stopped its wailing, its attention on fresh meat.

"When I get behind it," Bucky shouted, sand thick on his tongue, "Shoot it!"

This was a terrible plan.

"What?" Harley's voice carried clear and stunned over the sand. A cuff to the shoulder forced Harley back in line. Then, like the others, he spread out, drew his bow, and planted his arrows in the sand, but the damage was done. The viper lashed around and a speeding coil whipped toward Bucky. 

Yanking the shield up, he braced against the blow. The sky sailed past his feet and red earth careened beneath his head. Meat and bone throbbed as one from his cheekbone to his knees, and then he was descending, shoulder and hip barking against the barren waste.

Bucky spit his mouth clear and heaved in a breath. “Shit.” 

The skull on his shoulder thrummed with mirth and its teeth caressed his arm. The familiar pain helped Bucky roll to his feet, and he pushed forward, eyes on the massive writhing flank. The snake had knocked him behind it, and his hunters had followed orders and opened fire. Arrows flew in his direction, thudding into the sand and pinging off the shield. 

“Shit.”

Faster, he needed to be faster. On feet dancing the line between careful movement and greater speed, Bucky raced along the body of the snake. This close, the desert heat shed from its scales painted fresh sweat down his side, and the hot metal and musk smell of it burned into his nose.

Pounding over the sand, shield clasped in both hands, Bucky threw himself at the curve where the snake rose to hover over his hunters. The ranium bit deep and the snake bellowed, but this time Bucky was prepared.

Setting his feet, he braced and tore the shield free. It sprang toward him as if eager, and his feet slipped. Heat surged from his shoulder and Bucky twisted to bury the shield back into the fleshy wall. The snake threw itself down and rolled. Old and scarred, hide pitted from the war, it must remember the bite of ranium. White-knuckled, hands slick and grasping on the shield, Bucky rode the heaving body. The snake’s bucking slowed. His hands ached and ribs burned, shifting to start again revealed red smeared from his side across the silver scales. Gritting his teeth, he slammed the shield through scales and flesh, climbing ever closer to the juncture at the base of its massive jaws.

His hunters caught sight of his madness. They yelled at him, and their arrows slowed, new deadly precision in their aim. Bucky ignored them and bashed the shield home, scrambling to hang on. The snake reared back into the sky.

The desert floor rushed toward him and blasted back away with the heaving of the snake. It was a long, long way down. At the head, Bucky slipped his foot into the last gouge he'd made, picked his spot, and bore down. The stained and shining metal of the shield cut deep. Again and again he swung until the snake’s head rolled to hang from the thin remaining wall of snake meat and scales. The body wavered, and Bucky dove free, clutching the shield to his side. Wind scoured past his ears, and the desert floor rushed to claim him.

The impact drove his mind quiet.

He wasn’t dead. The rotted meat smell of the skull and bones decorating the length of his shoulder and arm intensified as it always did when he killed something. Right before—

Bright, searing pain stabbed through him and a new bone peeked from the flesh above his elbow, protruding slow and thick and wet. Bucky passed out.

———

**A Thirst for Pants**

After his shoes, the thing Tony missed the most in the aftermath of his capture was not access to water, though its lack would spell his death. No. It was his trousers. With every step, the chain that swung between his fancy new manacles threatened to pull him off balance and flash some cheek. Bare-assed and surrounded by potential enemies was not how he’d planned this kidnapping to go.

The memory of his pants tucked into the war machine for _safe-keeping_ taunted him.

Gently, like Tony was a wounded animal, the giant blonde woman who’d captured him directed him back into motion. A bubble of stillness travelled with them as they wound between tents and around people who stopped to gawk at his legs. His heartbeat pounded thick and heavy through his scalp and swollen tongue, muffling the whispers that followed him. Their syllables were foreign and threatening and clattered without meaning against his ears. He focused on his wobbling knees, the slow, gummy scrape of his eyelids, putting one naked leg in front of the other.

If only he had pants.

At the centre of the camp blissful shade spilled over him and he was hauled from the relentless sun. Inside he stumbled on uneven feet, the tent too dim after the unforgiving brightness.

Ass up in the dirt was an awkward way to meet anyone. His current circumstances—pantless, at the mercy of his captors, and he was beginning to think dehydrated—seemed especially unconducive to political negotiation. But a rough hand caught him and instead of pitching face first into the dirt, he was dragged up onto his toes by a hand spanning nearly the full length of his biceps. 

What did they feed these people? 

The darkness faded as Tony’s eyes adjusted and the face in front of him resolved into a stern jaw and unforgiving mouth. Armour scaled every broad inch of his captor’s chest, dark braids kept his hair in check, and a series of bones topped by a skull crawled up one of his arms. Not good. Definitely not good. 

Tony’s legs failed, and he sagged into the hand supporting him. He squinted at his newest captor’s face. There were important things to focus on, weapons, numbers, an explanation for his presence, _pants_ , but the blessed cool of the tent eased across him like a balm and his captor’s eyes were embarrassingly blue after the red on red of the Scar. He should be ashamed.

“Clothes?” he growled at the blonde woman, setting off a new wave of pounding in Tony’s ears. The tent sat high off the ground, useful for keeping the sweltering heat off, or for revealing potential escape routes. Things were not going to plan, and as soon as the walls of the tent stopped spinning, Tony was leaving. Pants or no pants.

More words sailed furiously past him, bouncing back and forth between his current and former jailors. The ground lurched, and he braced, screwing his eyes shut and clutching the forearm bearing his weight. There were no weapons other than the spears they both carried, and a silver shield resting against a pack that made his stomach turn when light bounced off it wrong.

An air of menace and the scent of death forced his eyes back open. The animal carcass strung up his captor’s arm watched him with malice. Since that was impossible, the rest of this wasn’t real. Tony swallowed a searing line down his throat and stared the expanding and contracting ground into submission.

He spoke several languages, and Pepper had drilled as much into him as their short time had permitted. If he could focus, he might be able to decipher what they intended to do with him. The argument continued, and the woman spread her legs to gesture at her crotch? pants? Sarcasm dripped from her tone, smile wide and taunting. She showed no fear of the man who still hadn’t released Tony’s arm. 

One thing was clear, he wouldn’t find Natasha—or pants—in this tent.

They were hunters, armed with spears and bows and lightly packed to move quickly. But they weren’t hunting. Maybe Natasha had found them and delivered the warning. Stane was coming and with him an army of lighteaters. Nearly naked and at their mercy, it might not look it, but Tony could protect them. Thanks to the paranoia of a distant ancestor there was one place that could stand against the depredations of the lighteaters, Stark Tower was inviolate.

Assuming he could convince his current warden or get on with escaping. Tony’s bicep tensed at the reminder and his captor turned back and released him. Gesturing to the floor, he said, “Sit—”

“Whoa, personal space.” Tony retreated, stumbling away from the creepy dead animal arm that reached for him. He shuddered. He did not want to know what happened when that thing touched him, but he was their captive, and they didn’t speak the same language, refusal was useless. Blue-eyes stopped, dropping the arm. When Tony paused, he held his hands open and out. Uncommonly solicitous for someone who had Tony in chains, but he’d take it. Saying something else, blue-eyes touched his own chest and then gestured to Tony.

Tony stared. Several seconds passed with no change and he held his shackled hands up, out of answers. “Tony?” he tried, tapping his sternum.

Approaching like Tony might bite, he rested the animal carcass free hand against the neckline of Tony’s too-large shirt. Fingers, a bare caress on Tony’s skin, pulled his shirt down and to the side. Tony’s lungs seized, and the thick, slow pound of his heart squeezed into rapid fluttering. A ragged electrical line jumped after the touch that drew his shirt aside. There, pressed into his flesh, the mark that made Tony a Stark, the mark that made him a monster.

His captor sprang back, face stricken. The blonde woman said something and a strained conversation ensued. Their voices rose and their gestures grew wild. Eventually, she threw her hands up and stepped back. Blue-eyes followed and their conversation turned to hissing.

Well, that wasn’t good. 

Backing away, Tony sank into an undignified, ass-bearing squat and slipped out beneath the raised side of the tent. Pants. He needed pants. With a lurch, he pushed himself back to standing, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. The heat beat into his scalp anew. 

Pants. Pants were good, he thought, kneeling in the dirt, but they couldn’t save him from passing out with sunspots in his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**A Decision is Made**

“Whatever you’re going to do about him,” Sharon said at an almost normal volume, humour creeping in her tone. “You better do it quick.” She nodded behind Bucky. “Because he’s getting away.”

The tent was empty. Tony’s shadow slipped away, growing thinner where it snuck under the raised walls. “Shadow take you.” Bucky cursed and bolted for the exit. Snapping the canvas at the entrance aside, his steps faltered. He’d just taken tacit responsibility for their waifish prisoner. Damn it.

Laughter chased him. “He never gasped and trembled like that for me!” 

The sun bore into him as he stalked after Tony. Sharon could find humour in anything, but the tattoo they’d seen—like blue fire scorched out from the centre of Tony’s chest—turned his stomach. The mark of House Stark. A dangerous warmongering people, they’d once owned the land the Eild claimed as theirs. It was the Starks’ unholy abuse of magic that tainted the once green and thriving land into the Scar, their work that had created the remnants.

Bucky halted. No. It couldn’t be. And broke into a run.

He shouted the alarm, whipped around the edge of the tent, and skidded to a stop.

Tony knelt in the dirt, one hand braced against his knee, the other clutching at the same tent he’d just fled. 

A whisper gusted around them, the slide of hushed feet and a dozen bowstrings pulled taut. The Eild surrounded them.

“What’s he done?” Sharon dashed toward them, lips pale in a face gone bloodless, bow half drawn. She took in the scene and coughed, large and fake. “Stay back, everyone. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

Bucky’s neck burned. “He’s _sick_ ,” he said, and did not stomp over to help. Tony slipped, his body cut limp, and only Bucky’s lunge kept him from eating dirt.

“False alarm,” Sharon said for him and waved the hunters back to their tasks. “Obviously.” She snickered before slipping into seriousness. “Harley, you were late. And no one doused the fire.” 

“What’s the fire matter if the sun won’t set for an hour?” someone complained. “Why hasn’t he got any pants?” someone else asked.

“Not my problem. Everyone make sure we’re packed in case we need to break camp in a hurry. You saw our big bad guest. He might have friends. They might even be fully clothed.”

In a rattle of arrows and relaxed bows, the hunters disbanded. “The speaker told me a story that started like this once,” Kamala said.

“The one where there was only one pallet?” Monica's voice picked up enthusiasm, but faded as she wandered away.

Beneath Bucky’s fingers, Tony’s pulse fluttered, thready and frantic. “When was the last time he had water?” 

"I told you he was delirious when I found him. I think he was trying to fix that old war machine in the Rim. What was I supposed to do other than bring him here and keep him from trying to hurt himself? I couldn’t speak to him, and at least this way he—” 

“Water,” Bucky cut in.

She waved someone to the well and followed Bucky and his charge back inside. They were travelling light. With only two weeks to collect and escort the many Eild who wandered or lived in distant settlements, they couldn’t carry anything extra. But calamity didn’t come on a schedule. If they hadn’t been camped here to refill their skins, they might not have had any to spare, and Bucky might have had to leave their prisoner—Tony—to his fate.

“Tell me again about the body.”

“It was there days longer than Tony, or he wouldn’t be alive.” Sharon shrugged. “No wounds, but there was blood.”

“Disease?”

Drawing even with him and pushing aside the tent flap, she waved at Bucky’s passenger. “Why do you think I told them to stay back? That I won’t touch him? You can’t get sick, but the rest of us don’t have your gift.”

“Gift. Right.” Tony had been sunblind, stumbling, and ignorant of what Bucky carried on his arm, and still he’d backed away shuddering. Bucky knelt and deposited him on the cool side of the tent. With the sides rolled up, a slight breeze pulled past the spot, dragged in by hot air that escaped elsewhere. With care, he stretched Tony out until he looked comfortable.

“You know what I mean. You’re handling the curse pretty well and it does have some benefits.”

“You saw the mark?” Bucky pulled the bottom of the shirt down to cover Tony’s thighs. Except for the shackles, he wore nothing else. This was all the modesty Bucky could afford him.

A water skin prodded Bucky’s shoulder, and Sharon thanked the hunter who’d delivered it. “I did.”

They’d both seen the mark before, on the shoulders of deserters and slaves escaping the Stark tyrant, on flesh torn from the bodies of those who were caught and then staked in the desert as a warning.

“They’re the calamity then.” 

Bucky breathed out. He hadn’t been the one to say it. She’d seen what he had, what sent him tearing after Tony and calling the camp to alert. Tony was a precursor. A warning or a threat. That was for Steve to decide. 

With gentle hands, he tipped Tony’s head back and trickled a thin stream of water between his lips.

Sharon snickered at him. “I always knew you should have been a caretaker. Forget the seer’s predictions. You should be covered in yearlings, wiping away snot.” 

Heat prickled down Bucky’s neck again. Even before the curse, he’d had too much talent for violence. Now it would never happen.

But it would have been nice.

“Shut up. You still need to get him some pants. And unless we split up, he’ll slow us down.”

Sharon said, each word distinct, “There are no pants to get.” 

He stared at her and she threw her hands into the air. “You know you’re bleeding, right? That sticky mess running down your side? Can we talk about _that_?” Her voice softened. “Can’t you feel it?”

“Of course.” He hadn’t, not until she brought it up, but the dampness was obvious now. A shallow breath brought the pain back along with it. 

“The arm?” She asked.

Carefully, he dribbled more water from the skin between Tony’s lips. “I’ll get it taken care of when we’re done here.” The curse was getting worse.

Sharon nodded, taking him at his word. “We always knew we might have to split up to make time. We won’t move swiftly with him, or you, in tow.”

That wasn’t strictly true. Unless the skull was feeling vindictive, Bucky would move just fine, no matter how bad his wounds. “The shackles won’t help.”

“You want to waltz around with a spy? Look, I know what that mark looks like, and I’d guess he escaped the tyrant too. But he could still be in Stark’s service. He could be working with them. Keep the shackles and send Harley to warn Steve. You know you want to. I’ll cross the plain.”

“You think I should take him and cover the southern forests?”

“And they said you were slow.”

“No. They say I’m cursed.” Bucky flashed his bone-ridden arm at her. “I don’t wear this because it brings out my eyes.” Maybe one day he’d stop pushing, but of all the Eild only his hunters didn’t care, and he kept waiting for the moment that would change. They had to wake up and realize they were following a man whose choices were slowly eating him alive.

Sharon rolled her eyes. “I spoke too soon. You’re dumb as a rock and only half as useful.”

Her dismissal firmed his resolve. Despite the sour roll in his gut, Tony was a danger to them. He either worked for Stark or his people would come to reclaim him. So, though he’d done nothing more alarming than wander around a desert without pants, the next time he tried to escape, Bucky would let him.

Bucky tipped another slow rivulet from the waterskin. Tony would need at least one night to recover. Tomorrow Bucky could use the arm to weaken the shackles. Until then, he could feed Tony water. He could make the man hale before abandoning him to his fate.

———

**A Moment in the Dark**

Night fell and Sharon snored. The escaped slave, possible spy, slept. 

Bucky pressed his frigid fingertips into his eyelids and counted the seconds, breathing in for eight and out for ten. White zephyrs danced on his breath in the bitter desert night.

Tony didn’t move, and his skin didn’t cool. Hands aching, Bucky squeezed water from a soaked rag onto his filthy shirt and the chest beneath it. The horrible blue sun burned through the wet cloth.

He dropped the spent rag back in the water bowl, clenching and unclenching his fists until he rekindled some warmth. A moment later heat seeped into his fingers as he pressed into Tony’s neck, searching for his heartbeat. Calm and strong. Better.

Without causing further violation, Bucky couldn’t check for wounds. Infected wounds could cause fever and delirium, but wet, Tony’s shirt left little to the imagination. His current state had to be heat sickness and dehydration. “Or Disease,” he said, dripping a new line of water into Tony’s dark hair. They couldn’t rule out Tony having whatever had killed the body he’d been found with.

“The only word you’ve spoken is your name, and already you’re nothing but puzzles and trouble.” Bucky’s voice wisped hollow and thin, and his throat itched. “Not the plague, don’t worry. Sharon was right. I don’t get sick, not since,” he jostled his bone-riddled arm, “The curse. This is just a little overuse scratching me up. Between the giant snake and the dragon lady, I’m over my word limit for the month. Probably risking drought.” 

The skull vibrated menacingly every time Bucky touched Tony, so he did it again. Dragging his shirt out to lie flat so there would be no chafing. Double-checking his pulse. “Sorry if it scared you.” Bucky flicked the smooth cheekbone covering his shoulder. A warning itch crawled over his shoulder. “It doesn’t do much but make people hate me. I took it for a friend.” 

He retrieved the rag and wrung water into Tony’s hair, working it deep against his scalp. There was no one to hear him hum while he drizzled more water and cleared away the lines of sweat at Tony’s temples. "If I’m risking drought, I should probably save all these words, huh? No reason to talk to a guy who can't hear me and wouldn't understand even if he could."

The blue sun haunted Bucky. Every word on the Starks said they were warmongers. After years of enmity with every major foreign power, the wild scion of the house had gone on a rampage, adding free towns, independent city states, and entire kingdoms to his empire. Every conquest had brought him closer to Eild lands. 

He pinched the back of Tony’s hand, but the skin didn’t spring back taut and healthy. It was another math problem. Except this time, regardless of how Bucky worked the equation, Tony died. All that changed was whether or not he took the Eild with him when Stark’s people came hunting.

“What am I going to do with you?” 

“And you asked why he was your problem,” Sharon said, sleep thick. She heaved herself to her feet and shuffled toward the tent flap. “You can’t fool me, Barnes. Covered in children. All you're good for.”

Bucky might have replied, but Tony’s eyes, rimmed silver in the low light, were open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also almost called this fic  
> How to Avert the Apocalypse in Ten Thousand Steps


	3. Chapter 3

**A Meeting**

Tony woke into the soothing bite of the desert at night. Shivery lines of relief trailed through his hair and down the sides of his neck. His captor’s eyes, obscured by shadow, stared down at him. Tony was in danger of forming a Pavlovian response. 

“Water?” he asked, voice a ruin. It was one of the handful of words he’d come forearmed with. There had been little time to learn more. Pepper, who’d come to him from a sandblasted land, insisted on that one above all others. She’d also insisted he and Natasha rendezvous anywhere but the heart of the magical blight. She was still learning to pick her battles.

The earth didn’t move when the giant barbarian surged to his feet, but it should have. He towered over Tony, the gloom robbing him of definition and exaggerating, surely exaggerating, his size. Without a word, the broad acre of him turned and hustled away. On his shoulder, the skull that hated Tony watched him for every step of it.

Tony closed his eyes and thumped the back of his head against the soft pallet beneath him. He shouldn’t have. Tension cracked out into his shoulders and down his spine, jagging up into the meat at the base of his skull. His muscles twitched and seized.

Woken to one discomfort, the rest of him throbbed to painful awareness. Everything hurt. The insides of his _ears_ hurt, the palms of his hands, his tongue. All his joints felt like they’d been snapped backwards and haphazardly tucked back under his skin. 

He would like to pass back out now.

When that didn’t happen, he thumped his head again, harder this time, damn the consequences. As usual, Pepper and Rhodey had been right. He shouldn’t be here. He’d learned nothing except Natasha was still alive. No. Worse. She had been alive. Which was the same information he’d had last week with the deck of his ship beneath him and the chance to outrun Stane. Now he was trapped in a desert with a people who didn’t match the reports, and he was harbouring beliefs about the emotional motivations of extremely dead bone accessories. 

How close to death had he come this time? The soft pallet whumpfed as it caught his head again. Irrelevant. Focus. Escape had been a terrible plan. Dehydration had made him stupid. With no information and none of his tasks complete, he couldn’t leave. He was here to win the Eild, take Stark Tower, and end Stane’s megalomaniacal march of madness.

Step one, he slammed his head back, but a gentle hand caught him, fingers an icy gift where they pressed through Tony’s hair to meet scalp. Tony’s light exploded and several things happened at once.

His eyes popped open to stare into the gaze looming out of the dark. Paired with the icy gift of his fingers, the Pavlovian response Tony was afraid of was guaranteed to set in.

Worse, his jailor was wounded. Energy from the light inside Tony flowed between them. Cracked ribs, long, angry lacerations that ripped over them, superficial fractures to the collar bone… meat. There was so much muscle pulverized to the edge of uselessness clustered around hip and shoulder. Only a desperate stranglehold on his light and years of denying it kept Tony from reaching out to fix the damage.

And the watching skull.

The world snapped back into focus, two fingers coasting thick and rough over his tongue, and his captor’s words spilled over him.

If Tony was going to learn their language, and he was, he’d start with that phrase. ‘What the hell is wrong with you’ or ‘You idiot, you’re going to swallow your own tongue,’ had a lot of building block words he could work with.

More words followed. Vehemently.

As soon as his mouth was free, Tony pressed his thumbs together and fanned his own fingers to the sky in the politest greeting he’d ever had to make. “Tony.”

Time stretched between them, his captor’s fingers still cool and gentle against his scalp. The sounds of their breathing grew to fill the darkness.

“Bucky,” His captor answered, eyes roving back and forth over Tony’s face and his hands. It was a long time before Bucky reached for the waterskins at his knees, easing Tony’s head down into softness. The relief Bucky’s cool fingers brought dwindled, leaving Tony hot and miserable, but Tony’s light calmed once he wasn’t in skin contact with someone wounded and that was its own kind of solace.

Out of the darkness, Bucky pulled a hollowed-out gourd and filled it before offering it to Tony.

“Bucky,” Tony said before taking it and washing the taste of fingers off his tongue.

———

**A Nightmare**

Tony slept across the room. The dry whistle of air through his nose filled the darkness. He needed more water, but his eyelids had drooped further and heavier and Bucky had stopped refilling the gourd. Tomorrow, Bucky would do better tomorrow. 

With the sun gone to its bed and Bucky about to seek his, it was a relief to have someone breathing in his space. The gauntlet that awaited him every night was easier to face surrounded by proof of life. Touch wasn’t an option, but he could hear, and that would have to be enough. It was more than he should take, but sleeping far enough not to benefit from the comfort was impractical and dangerous for both of them.

Laying back, Bucky clung to the sounds of Tony’s breathing as the skull’s nightmares came.

Steve needed him. 

This wasn’t how it happened, but the strange half-waking dream, half nightmare the skull visited on him didn’t care. Bucky ran through empty, grassy paths between tents in a place that was both the valley of his home and somewhere he’d never been. The path had no exit, though all around him the ground was even and level, barely demarcated between grass pounded flat and grass untrod. 

Steve needed him. 

Too many lean winters had stolen the Eild’s ability to care. No matter how fast he pushed there were more tents, more paths, more people turning their faces away, and still Steve needed him.

Bucky stood in water up to his waist. In front of him a skull, the match to his shoulder, offered Steve redemption, strength, hope, belonging. And he took it, skin peeling away, face a noseless, red mask, bones piled at his feet. In the real world Bucky had sought help, he’d questioned the elders, pressed until he got the truth. He’d been told the Monster would give Steve all he asked for and more. But its gifts came with cost. 

Bucky paid the price. That was true both here and in reality.

The dream changed. More reality bleeding in. Steve was hale, free, righteous, everything he wanted. But Bucky ran from memory to memory where Steve made harsh calls, failed to listen, forgot to smile.

The Speaker read calamity in the dust of the living stone. The end of Eild. She spoke of ending old prejudices and making allies. Steve heard what he wanted. Bucky was sent away.

He’d never seen the Tor, but he knew in the way of dreams that the dark tower that clawed at his mind was it.

Steve needed him.

Finally, exhausted, Bucky found the dark of sleep.

———

**An Awakening**

Outside a wandering moan blew listless and grasping over the tents. Tony ignored it, every sense straining for some hint from the far side of the tent. Time played tricks. With only the wind to listen to and the dark to watch, it was impossible to gauge how long Bucky twitched and moaned before growing still. 

This was the biggest gamble of Tony’s life, and it involved him sneaking around in the dark without pants. Of course it did. He’d escaped Stane, started a rebellion, accidentally conquered several independent cities, freetown’s, and kingdoms, left Pepper and Rhodey to deal with the fallout, and still this would be worse.

His fingers flexed, the joints still aching from their brief flirtation with dehydration. He could have stayed aboard the Cheeky Bastard if he wanted to go die in flagrante. The swaying deck of his flagship had plenty of opportunities for that. The risk was bigger than his own life. Everything he’d done to undermine, derail, and prevent his Obie from his bloody march to conquest was on the line. And Tony was risking it on a whim. No. For an icy set of fingers and kind eyes.

He was wasting time. It had been like an hour since he’d almost died.

On a careful breath, one that had stopped tasting like blood, he lifted his head. The wind continued to mither, tugging at the lowered tent walls. Nothing else had changed save the dark lump that must be Bucky. Measured and silent, he braced. Then he spun in a clamour of clattering shackles.

Bucky didn’t move.

No one came to investigate. 

There might not be another chance. Tony rose and walked to the pile of blankets that marked his sleeping captor—if someone came in, this would look less suspicious than sneaking. The temperature had plunged and the bare floor bit into his naked feet with cold teeth. A dozen frozen steps divided the tent, each one more bitter than the last. 

His toes caught the rough spun blanket of his target, and Tony paused, waiting, staring at the tent flap. It didn’t move. Dropping into a crouch, he reached. He didn’t have permission, but Bucky’s face had filled Tony’s eyes when he’d been dying, and there again when he’d woken safe and cared for. 

Scrabbling along the blanket, he searched for an arm, preferably not the one bearing the hideous skull, or a shoulder…

There, oh hello, his scruffy captor had sinfully soft hair. Pressing the fingers of one hand through the thick mass to reach his scalp, and bringing his other fingers to flit over Bucky’s forehead, Tony breathed in. He’d almost never done this. Public sentiment had turned against lightbreathing since Stane had corrupted the talent for healing into a weapon. First it had been hidden for him, then he’d been determined to ruin it and himself, and now it was too late. Any who might have taught him were in hiding or pressed into service.

Dwelling on how unsuited he was wouldn’t help. Tony focused and waited and breathed and focused some more. Shit. He’d survived heatstroke just to die of boredom. At least his paranoia kept him awake and on task, checking the entrance every few seconds. 

By some miracle he unearthed his light before he was discovered or the sun rose. Steady and low, it beat at his centre, unnurtured but healthy despite his minor dalliance with spontaneous mummification earlier.

Next up, Bucky’s light. It bloomed delicate and blushing under Tony’s touch— a gentle fire, soft and strong. He would have healed well on his own, but Tony was here and a debt was owed. The fire of his own light bled down his arms, travelling swift and sure through his veins to slip through the spots Tony’s fingers brushed. It tumbled further, forming a loop between Tony’s hands. He fed his light into Bucky and pulled Bucky’s into him, threading them together into a stable current.

The wounds he’d detected earlier were much worse up close. Muscle all along Bucky’s right side was minced. The broken ribs had to be fresh, no older than a day, and the lacerations over them too. Smaller knicks and cuts pulled through Tony to disappear without thought. He worked his way through the greater injuries from right to left, the taste of blood returning to his tongue.

“How are you not dead yet?”

Bucky shouldn’t have been able to move, let alone fetch and carry water for Tony, then sit, kneel, and hover to encourage Tony when he drank too little, force him to stop when he gulped too much.

Where his light failed, Tony fell back on his eyes, but Bucky’s body was loose and still, eyes closed, face unburdened. His sleep was pain free.

Something was wrong. 

Tony tried for a lighter touch, discovery not deep healing, but he was useless with inexperience. The current between them sped faster. Damaged knuckles disappeared, the raw meat of Bucky’s side tightened into muscle again. His ribs grated back into place, clicking whole, and the ragged edges of the open wounds over them scabbed. Something jagged the current away from the cuts over Bucky’s ribs.

“What—” Tony cut himself off. What the hell? 

Darkness. A nightmare wound of ice and hunger ate its way through Bucky’s left arm. Long, thick ropes of something sentient pulsed through tissue and bone. _Bones_. The animal carcass was _growing_ out of Bucky’s arm. The skull was fused to him. A horror of grasping malice and bone that blocked Tony’s path. It forced him out.

He jerked his hands free and snapped to his feet. The skull gleamed, though there was no light to see it by, and Bucky twitched. His eyelids pulled back to stare at Tony. 

Blundering backwards, chains rattling, Tony threw himself onto his pallet. He missed the searing light of day. The skull no longer looked at him, but it was there. Frozen hatred barely held at bay.

Bucky hadn’t spoken. Maybe he hadn’t seen. Maybe the monster—it could be killing Bucky now. 

Finally cold, Tony pulled his blanket over himself. He’d done what he could do. If Bucky woke tomorrow, his injuries should be nothing but scratches and memories. A kindness for a kindness. It was all he could do.

The lie lodged, thick with bile, at the back of his throat and it was a long, cold, miserable time before sleep took him. 

———

**A New Plan**

Tony shuffled past another hunter. They all kept their distance without ever letting him out of sight. Through the throb of his body—feet, hands, eyes, scalp, _teeth_ —he returned the favour while limping the layout of the camp. Waterhole and winch, animal dung fire pit, tents, hunters, no laundry lines, no unattended clothes, no pants. If he’d been planning escape, that might have been a problem. Instead, he resigned himself to the ignoble fate of attempting diplomatic relations with his best asset threatening to join the party. 

He counted five tents and eight hunters. Each carried or sat near a weather treated pack, ready to move. Two stood watch while the rest relaxed around the firepit, their voices and the tantalizing smell of cooked meat weaving around him.

More and more his pacing carried him past the tent he’d spent the night in. There was no sign of Bucky or the demon on his shoulder. Relief and anxiety tangled through him. Bucky’d still been sleeping when Tony slipped out, sleeping, not dead, the skull inert. Tony hadn’t abandoned him to death alone in the dark. But Bucky’d seen him. 

In the light of day, with the sun scorching into him and his mind clear, he couldn’t pretend otherwise. The secret he’d kept from all but a few his entire life was known by a dangerous outsider. He’d fucked up, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Stane was coming at the head of an army bolstered by lighteaters. It was his fault, he’d been so intent on hiding that Stane had resurrected a defunct indentured servitude law right under Tony’s nose and used it to press people with the gift into service.

He turned, hobbling away, Bucky might behead him for being a lighteater at any moment, and Stane would surely try once he finished his bloody march east, but Tony had a third problem, Natasha wasn’t here.

Stane was advancing, and without Natasha to translate, Tony’s mission was dead in the water. Somehow he’d ended up with only half a plan—get caught by the Eild, ascertain if they could be won over, and broker an alliance with their chief offering protection for all at Stark Tower. His steps slowed, joints aching, every heartbeat squeezing a fresh throb of pain through his scalp. He couldn’t pantomime what was coming or offer an alliance through body language. Not that his current outfit wasn’t doing its best. His bare knees flicked from under his oversized shirt with every step, and anything more than a sluggish breeze would leave him on display. He needed to start over, at the top, with Bucky.

Bucky.

He’d come full circle. The tent hiding Bucky cast its shadow across the sand to halt at Tony’s feet. Tony's best chance of protecting the Eild and his own people, of making an alliance, knew his secret.

That was the other thing about clear thinking and the light of day. These hunters weren’t hunting. They lounged, ate, talked. Sharon, the large blonde woman, laughed, and it followed Tony like her eyes. But they didn’t hunt. 

He didn’t match the reports—surely one of Tony’s spies or Stane’s would have mentioned ‘interesting wardrobe choices’ or ‘wears sentient evil skull abominations’—but Bucky was the huntmaster. The key to negotiations with Steve. 

Until Stane, Tony’s ancestral lands had been all but forgotten. The Eild were descendents of a secret organization that had once served his family. They’d earned the land they stood on, and Tony had no interest in taking it. But with the lighteaters weaponized, Stark Tower which the Eild had reportedly never occupied had become the last bastion of safety for any who resisted Stane’s rule. Despite Tony’s floundering efforts, he was exactly where he was supposed to be. 

Hope squeezed in him. If they weren’t hunting, maybe they knew what was coming. And that meant Natasha. Maybe she’d warned them. Maybe Steve was open to negotiation after all, and Bucky wasn’t necessary. Maybe Tony’s missteps hadn’t ruined everything.

He couldn’t count on that. He’d missed the signs of Stane’s impending betrayal. It was his ignorance and distraction that allowed his uncle to wage a negative propaganda campaign, painting all lightbreathers as evil, lighteaters in the making. When Stane used his success to out Tony as a lightbreather and dethrone him, he hadn’t seen that coming either. In the desperate months that followed, Natasha was the one to point out that his need to save people from his own mistakes led to him starting wars to prevent a war. 

He couldn’t fail again. Pepper and Rhodey, who _had_ seen what Stane was doing, deserved better. Natasha, and every other person Tony had promised safety and protection to, deserved better. 

It was time to craft plan E.

Rhodey would laugh at him if they survived. All their careful scheming, multiple backup plans, and contingencies and here Tony was shackled, bare-assed, bare-footed, and surrounded by people who couldn’t understand him complain.

Tony swallowed and winced, his throat still gritty and raw. A hand emerged from behind him, holding a small hollowed-out gourd. The pool of water it carried sparkled in the sunlight, and Tony traced the long path from the gourd, up the arm holding it, and over Bucky’s features. Sweat slicked his spine. This was it. He knew. So much for plan E.

He knew. He knew. He knew. And this was happening. Chained wrists held close together, Tony accepted the gourd. His eyes never left Bucky’s, his features were set, revealing nothing. Tipping the gourd to his mouth without breaking his view, Tony looked for any sign of what Bucky’d seen or what he planned to do on his face. The rush over his tongue snapped his sinuses clear and flushed the throbbing from his head. Bucky’s stupid cool eyes rested on Tony until the gourd was empty. He didn’t fly into a rage of accusations, he didn’t reach for his knife, he didn’t carve the blue sun from Tony’s chest, but a deep line rested between his brows as he gestured Tony towards the fire pit.

The Eild relaxed seeing Bucky walking next to him. He hadn’t realized how tense they’d been until he couldn’t see it anymore. Even with the thing on his shoulder, they trusted him. Maybe that was why Steve listened to him when the reports said he listened to no one else.

Tony worked the chain between his hands, link by link. Okay, bright side, Bucky hadn’t beheaded him for being a lighteater, he was up some fourteen words over what he’d known yesterday, and more names had fallen into his lap. Sharon, Kamala, Monica—the clever one—and someone named Harley who’d been sent to update Steve. 

Tony could do this. Task delayed, not failed. Another two days and he should be able to have a rudimentary conversation. Then he just had a people to protect and a tyrant to dethrone.

———

**A Snacc**

When Bucky was eight and Steve was seven, he saw his first chicken. The Eild group he’d been born into was small and insignificant. They had no settled home and spent their time travelling between the settlements nestled in the Bonell woods and the plains west of the Scar.

As children, they were restricted from entering the settlements. So, of course, as soon as they’d been old enough, he and Steve had snuck in anyway. Chickens looked stupid and smelled weird, and Steve had called them ducks. If Steve hadn’t insisted he was correct until Bucky finally broke and asked his ma, he wouldn’t have remembered—his hands, cracked open from all the dishes he’d done as punishment, had enshrined the memory. They didn’t matter, but years later, guided by the Speaker of the Signs, an ancient remnant broke away from its hibernation at the apex of the Scar and revealed a healthy living valley. Settled and stable for the first time in Bucky’s life, they had chickens of their own. Before Steve had soured, children had teased him by calling them ducks.

They trained stray dogs to look after them, keep them out of thoroughfares, protect them from the valley’s predators, and retrieve them when they wandered too far.

Bucky refused to meet Sharon’s eyes as he escorted Tony to where she sat by the fire. He knew that look. She was comparing him to one of those dogs right now. Instead he resettled his travelling pack, heavier now with the addition of the shield and pulling to the side. Whoever Tony usually was, Stark insurgent or escaped slave, right now he was just a man who faltered every third step and had no pants. He needed herding. 

Unless he was the thing that had set the skull raging in the night. 

Bucky’d woken to its vibrating displeasure and angry teeth. For hours it had thrummed in the darkness, a lodestone of rage. Now it was inert, the weight of its attention turned elsewhere for the first time. Bucky had slept deeply and much longer than usual, waking light and refreshed, tension he’d become numbed to drained out of him.

He gestured Tony to a spot by the fire, a safe distance from the rocky shelf where Sharon and a few others lounged. “Sit?” Everyone stared at him, and Bucky froze. A second later, he rolled his eyes. He didn’t smile _that_ rarely.

“Did something happen last night?” Sharon asked, leaning in but keeping her distance. If Tony was sick, she should be fine.

“What?” Bucky kept his eyes on Tony’s legs. They needed to get him something to wear. It was safer to worry about that than let Sharon think she knew something.

“He can’t take his eyes off you.”

Bucky’s spine snapped taut, startling Tony who was moving slowly to sit where Bucky had indicated. “You don’t think I—”

“Of course I don’t. But yesterday you saved his life and...” She trailed off. But she was right, pinched and suspicious, Tony never looked away. Yesterday, Bucky had bled without feeling fresh pain of it. Not uncommon since the skull, one hurt so easily drowned out by others. He never healed properly anymore. Surface injuries faded slowly, and deep ones not all, the pain of each new wound lingering and stacking against the older ones. Bucky’s daily life was a casual misery of discomfort. Not that the skull ever left him limping or unable to swing a knife. He’d thought about seeking help once, going so far as to work out the best description for what it was like. A symphony of pain.

“Today he thinks I might kill him.” If Tony was the thing Bucky’s missing wounds suggested he might be, then he had plenty of reason. Bucky hadn’t found any of the silver handprint marks of lighteating when he’d clawed himself awake. But he’d heard that some people willingly fed their lives to the touch of a lighteater to feel like this.

“You won’t,” she said, and handed him a chunk of the snake meat they’d ripped from the remnant. “Feed him. You’ll win him over.”

“Sharon,” Bucky started, plopping himself onto the rocks and barricading Tony between his knees. He dropped his bag down next to Tony, providing what cover he could for his bare lower half. She didn’t know.

“ _Sharon_.” She mimicked him. “Yes, that mark on his chest links him to the Starks somehow, but he can’t understand us. He’s either an incompetent spy or someone we can win over. There’s no way he doesn’t know at least something.”

Bucky tore a chunk of the snake meat free and held it out to Tony. His face pinched further, then his eyebrows rose, and his lip curled. Heat swamped over Bucky. Why had he listened to Sharon? Tony wanted nothing to do with him, Bucky had him in chains he—

Tony’s lips hovered over the meat held in Bucky’s fingers. A puff of air caressed his warm greasy flesh and then Tony’s teeth pulled the meat free.

Bucky couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. What had he just done? His hand dangled uselessly in place.

Hair brushed against Bucky’s knee, Tony’s eyes flicking up as if he expected more. Why did his pants have to be torn there? Fresh sweat slipped down his spine. The sun and the fire, that’s all it was. Plenty of reasons to sweat in a blasted wasteland. 

He held out another chunk of meat.

His eyes were too wide, a stretching pressure at their edges told him they were trying to force themselves even wider. With effort, he flicked a glance to Sharon. Her eyes were just as wide.

“That is not what I meant.” She hissed.

It happened again. Tony’s flyaway, unkempt hair falling to brush against Bucky as he tipped forward to bite at the meat held out for him. Bucky’s thigh twitched, and everything was very hot.

He should…

Lighteater. Tony was a lighteater. Bucky remembered the way Sharon described the dead body she’d found with Tony. She thought it was there longer than Tony could have been, dead and unmarked, but the scars of lighteating were easy to miss if you weren’t looking. Bucky himself had only seen them once.

Yes. Focus. Tony was dangerous, a threat. That was the important bit. Untouchable. He passed Tony a waterskin in self defence. He couldn’t keep doing this. Tony’s eyes roved up the prison of Bucky’s legs before working their way over his chest, across the monstrous skull—of course—and settling on Bucky’s face. Tiny prickles crawled up his legs with Tony’s gaze, a warm flush following its path to settle in his cheeks. He waited, the fire baking into his chest and knees, the sun blazing into everything else. Everyone always looked back to the skull. The moment stretched, but Tony didn’t look away. 

He shouldn’t react. Tony choosing to look at Bucky over the skull shouldn’t matter—not when Sharon was wrong and Bucky might have to kill him. 

“Incoming!” Came the call from one of the sentries. He sprang to his feet, pressing Tony down behind the fire and bracing for the sharp press of the skull’s hunger.

It didn’t come. 

Tony grumbled beneath him. Sharon was already armed and drawing. The other Eild snapped to order and arrows began to fly. 

His muscles flowed loose. This had always been his strength, the dance of battle instinctual and easy. He’d forgotten since the skull.

Bucky plucked the shield free of the ties that held it to his pack and charged.


	4. Chapter 4

**A Reckoning**

Lenamar. Those were the markings of Lenamar. The Lenamari were the last people Tony warned before chasing after Natasha. They hadn’t been interested in his ‘baseless, hysterical, fearmongering’. 

They were mounted, charging in a spray of sand, weapons drawn. “Not friends, definitely not friends.” Tony wrapped his hands around the chain strung between his manacle. It would do, but he added weapons immediately behind pants on the list of things he needed to acquire. 

In a wave the Lenamari descended, and Bucky leapt to meet them. The hunters split into two groups. One set up a small perimeter, their backs to each other with Tony at the centre. The rest split up and scattered. Tony fought to his feet. If this was a normal raid, they were here for the water and whatever they could grab along the way. The other options were worse. Either they were here for him, and the Eild would live or die by their willingness to surrender Tony, or Stane had arrived at their borders.

Beyond the wall of hunters surrounding Tony, Bucky danced. He whipped backwards off the sand, body curving like a bow, and at the top of his arc he threw a knife. Launched from mid-air, mid-rotation, the dagger struck home, knocking his target from the saddle. Coming out of the leap, Bucky slammed the burning shield down in front of him and crouched behind it. More knives flew, taking Lenamari at the neck and thigh before Bucky was surrounded. 

The hunters fired and Tony ran for the winch over the waterhole, forcing his entourage to move with him. They were outnumbered, but they weren’t losing yet. It would be better if he could position himself away from the well, that would have eliminated at least one of his theories, but the Eild needed help and Tony only had one skill that might aid them without turning him into a monster.

They called back and forth to each other, words short and clipped, and Tony thought he followed. Into a gap he added, “Fire,” meeting the eyes of the youngest Eild, clever Monica. There was a pause, seconds slipping away, and then she ran back to the fire.

The Eild hadn’t used the winch, and now the reason was obvious. The rust looked bad, but this was a desert, even at the watering hole the metal shouldn’t be so oxidized it was unsalvageable. 

Dangling from his own shackles, Tony fought the wheel into motion. With one word instructions, spaced between arrow volleys, he and the Eild cobbled the barely functional winch, a few spare bowstrings, a bow stave, and the tough fabric of one of their packs into a truly pathetic catapult. 

With bits hauled over by a bleeding Monica—the guilt would have to wait—- they rained fire on their attackers. The controlled mayhem of the battle descended into chaos. Lenamari screamed, but so did the Eild. Horses reared, and the Lenamari spun into confusion. Bucky called the Eild back to order. And the flow of the fighting changed. 

When the Lenamari worked out they didn’t have a proper war machine, or that its range and angle were fixed, they would stop hesitating. Tony needed to fix this now. 

He slipped between his defenders, leaving them to man his greatest embarrassment, and went to find Bucky. 

Tony’s thighs burned as the sand fought him. This was why he and Natasha had rendezvoused in the barrens of the Blasted Rim. Even war atrocities had their upsides. Lost in the flow of battle, Tony was ignored. Maybe it was the chains or the lack of pants, but he passed unscathed, swinging back and forth trying to find the whirlwind of death that was his captor.

There. Bucky slipped past a clustered group of milling and dismounted Lenamari. When he came charging back, blood dripping from his hair and the shield, the Lenamari fell. 

Tony pushed forward. Where he’d been dodging bodies before, now they were fleeing. The Lenamari were clumping up, pulling back. The Eild had the upper hand.

Tony’d helmed more than one campaign during his efforts to warn people about Stane—when he’d accidentally conquered a few freetowns and some kingdoms. He’d preferred scare tactics, hit and run, strategies meant to break morale but leave people alive. Whatever this was, it wasn’t that.

This was wrong. The Lenamari weren’t retreating.

Tony leapt forward. If this didn’t result in his head on a spike, he’d call it a win. Flinging himself to his knees, he whipped the chain of his shackles out in front of him to catch Bucky’s leg and jerked back. He heaved against Bucky’s bulk. With desperation and leverage on his side, Bucky went down as their attackers turned back in a unified front. 

Spears flew, but Bucky wasn’t where he’d been, and the Lenamari faltered.

Tony stuck to Bucky after that. He was fine, but Tony was determined to see him stay that way. The Lenamari were driven off, but the Eild retreated to let them collect their dead. For all the blood and havoc, there were few bodies. None of them were Eild, but Monica was wounded.

Once the Lenamari were out of sight, the Eild gathered their gear and tents, and refilled their waterskins. The sun had barely moved when they started out.

——— 

**A Risk is Taken**

Conversation flowed over Tony as they marched. The sounds were familiar now, even if the words were not. Hand gestures and the occasional recognizable term suggested the Eild were discussing splitting up. They debated for hours while Tony dragged his feet, sliding them along below the first layer of sand where it was cooler.

The only interruptions in the argument came when Bucky broke away to hover over Tony, refusing to make eye contact, and feeding him water. The grit of sand between his toes and oppressive heat became background sensations. Looking far enough ahead made the desert shimmer like Tony was back on the deck of a ship. Finally night fell, bringing blissful relief with it before the chill became crushing.

No tents were pitched. The Eild pulled out their pallets and laid them out on the open sand. No one started a fire. 

Teeth clenched against the chill, feet buried for warmth this time, Tony watched Bucky roll out the layers of his pallet. His pallet. The same pallet Tony had slept on and assaulted with the back of his head last night. He remembered crossing to heal Bucky and the rough fabric against his toes. Had that been a single blanket? Had Bucky slept on the frozen ground while Tony—overheated at the time—took what was his? Tony was still staring when Bucky finished and gestured at the pallet. The reports about the Eild hadn’t been wrong. Tony was going to learn the words for thank you, and then he was going to learn the words to warn the Eild.

When Tony hesitated, Bucky spoke. Too many words followed for Tony to parse, but he reluctantly climbed in. He wouldn’t survive a night with nothing but a shirt and some chain between his cheeks and the desert at night. Before he could work out an alternative to his usual method for asking someone to share his bed, Bucky shuffled off to mingle with his people. Fingers and toes already numb, Tony pulled his legs up under the over large t-shirt. He was wearing just about the right amount of clothing for the original way to work. 

Pillowing his cheek against his knee, Tony watched Bucky hustle about their impromptu camp. Pants. He’d learn the words for thank you, my bastard uncle is coming to kill us all, and I’ll give you my kingdom for some fucking pants.

Darkness was less complete in the desert than on the ocean. The sea ate starlight, but the red sands cast it back. Tony sat and watched and listened as the Eild settled themselves down amidst laughs and grumbles. Despite his size, Bucky had a way of not drawing attention. It was interesting to watch, and Tony would have missed what was happening if he hadn’t. Unnoticed he arranged things so Monica slept nearby, and the other Eild spread out at a distance. Her breathing was laboured as she unfurled her own pallet. The blood Tony noticed during the battle was dry and crusted around her shoulder and collarbone. Had she looked that young before the skirmish? Her wounds were his fault. He could have tried someone else. Her cleverness was obvious, but that didn’t mean someone else couldn’t have worked out what he needed. 

He scooped up a fistful of sand and let it strain through his fingers. If he ever negotiated a truce or protection agreement or alliance with the Eild, he was going to bury her so deep in the tower no one would ever hurt her again. The last few grains gritted against his palm as he clenched his fist. The Lenamari had ignored him completely, and they probably wouldn’t have broken if they needed the well. That left flight from Stane as their most likely motivation. Tony was doubly responsible, and he’d see far worse if he didn’t hurry this along. 

Bucky helped ease Monica down, his gaze on Tony. The upturned curve of his brow and the soft widening of his eyes was a plea. This wasn’t conjecture or paranoia anymore. He knew.

He knew and Tony was still alive.

Tony was still alive and about to share a bed, bare-assed, with someone who kept him in chains, knew about his gift, and wanted him to use it. 

Was that trust?

By the time Bucky climbed in behind him, his heavy armour set aside, Tony had worried one dry cuticle bloody. He had a thousand questions. What’s happening? Who _are_ you? Why am I still alive? If he survived a second attempt at untrained healing, he was going to learn a language for every one he couldn’t ask.

It grew sinfully cozy under the blankets. Yesterday Bucky’s touch had brought cool relief. Now he burned like a furnace. That was a handy skill in a bed partner.

The shuffling of the camp slowed. Someone snored. Monica went lax. That was his cue, and it sent goosebump surging over him in a scatter of pinpricks. He clenched his fists until his knuckles popped and drew a deep breath. This wouldn’t be like last night, his secrets safe behind canvas. Tonight he’d be in the open, and the reddish light bouncing off the sand would leave him exposed and obvious. It was worth the risk. Monica didn’t deserve to bear pain he’d caused and while he couldn’t talk to Bucky yet, couldn’t explain himself, this he could do.

Probably.

The rock that was Bucky shifted when Tony lifted the blanket, and the first words on his list quietly broke the night.

“Thank you,” Bucky said, his face too close, moonlight painting his cheekbones, shining his eyes. Tony crawled away. 

——— 

**A Tricky Situation**

Bucky should have expected this. Silly and salacious romances were a favourite of their Speaker, and this was exactly the kind of thing that would have happened in one of her stories. 

Tony shifted on top of him, and Bucky held his breath. Slowly, so he didn’t disturb his bedmate, he flexed the fingers he’d trapped under his thighs, driving the knuckles one by one into the undersides of his legs. The ache of the new bones he’d gained fighting the Lenamari and the first blush of dawn were the only distraction Bucky had from the rise and fall of Tony’s head on his chest and the way his breath coasted warm and steady into Bucky’s shirt. 

“It’s a good thing you aren’t heavy enough to crush me.” His hands had been exiled beneath his thighs after he’d tried to ease Tony free and discovered his shirt had rucked up, _very_ up. “Pants, Tony. I don’t care if you’re a terrible spy, an escaped slave, or an abomination. I’d give just about everything I lay claim to for a single pair of pants and some answers.”

His voice was quiet, but Tony shifted again anyway. 

Bucky’s life had taken a turn for the absurd. An undisclosed disaster, probably involving the man asleep on his chest, hovered on the horizon, the Lenamar had attacked for the first time in half a century, and the cursed skull slowly corrupting him was behaving weird. There had been no nightmare state before sleep took him last night.

“I’ve got shit to worry about,” Bucky said to the rumpled hair resting on his chest. “And here I am sitting on my hands, literally, because you get handsy in your sleep.”

He flexed his fingers again and watched the horizon instead of Tony’s head. “You saved my life yesterday.” He’d never managed to be cavalier enough to see if the skull would let him die. So it might be true. He was glad either way that he hadn’t had to find out. “And I can hear Monica breathing clear and easy.” The cusp of day was only moments away, morning slowly rendering through the sky. Bucky didn’t want this to end.

He’d asked without asking, not a word spoken, and Tony might have done it, regardless, but Bucky had asked and Tony had healed her. A lighteater healing instead of hurting. “It’s you making the skull quiet too, isn’t it?”

He could hold still and wait for Tony to right himself, wake naturally, pull his shirt down, and maintain what dignity he could. Steve might disagree, might want Bucky to follow the law and eliminate him, but Bucky was glad he hadn’t done it. 

“Thank you.” It was a good thing his hands were trapped. He wanted to run his fingers through Tony’s hair. Inappropriate didn’t begin to cover it. If his ma knew...

Better to whisper his thanks into the dawn and leave it. “I know I thanked you last night, but it seems I’m running a deficit.” He’d spoken more to Tony than he had to his hunters in weeks. “Probably helps that you can’t understand me.”

He closed his eyes and relaxed into waiting. He wouldn’t admit it, and Tony would never know, but this was a shamefully pleasant way to spend his morning. Muscles still loose, the skull still unfocused, and Bucky free to soak up harmless, accidental human closeness. He didn’t take bed mates—after the arm none would have him, and while his hunters respected him he kept them at arm's length. 

Tony shifted again and then again. His head popped up, features folded into a squint, lines from Bucky’s shirt pressed into his cheek and forehead.

“Morning,” Bucky said. “Breakfast?” And then bit his cheek. Tony may not be able to understand him, but anyone with ears would hear the warmth in his tone. Heat spiked through him, and then again when he realized Tony was close enough that he might be able to feel it. He sounded _besotted._

Tony’s face rumpled, and he slid away, one hand working his shirt down. On his knees, he yawned, and wiped the hand not clutching the hem of his shirt over his face. Bucky sat up, careful to keep a safe distance between them, and a cool cascade brought blood rushing back into his fingers. 

The sky lightened, moments passed, and Bucky’s embarrassment eased. Tony spun, gaze sharp, the softness of sleep falling away to look at Monica. Light kissed her brown cheeks, and the twists of her hair against the pallet. Her face was unlined, and her breathing was steady and strong.

“Thank you,” Bucky said for the third time, canting his head towards Monica and wiggling his fingers.

Tony stared at him and his embarrassment returned. What was he doing? 

“You’re a little bitch.”

Bucky blinked. Tony snapped all the fingers on both his hands in one motion and pressed his tongue into the corner of his mouth, watching him intently.

Bucky blinked again. 

Tony repeated himself, slower and clearer, shifting the stresses until the words were unintelligible.

“Sorry?” Bucky asked.

“No,” Tony said. “No?” Then used a word Bucky hadn’t heard in years. Some of the oldest members of the Eild apologized like that.

Bucky laughed, a bright surge echoing out of his chest. Monica groaned at him and Bucky laughed harder. Tony wasn’t faking his inability to speak to them. 

The rest of the Eild began shifting and grumbling. Sharon threw a knife point first into the sand next to his pallet.

Eyes bouncing between Bucky, the other Eild, and Sharon. Tony snapped his fingers and popped his palms together saying, “She’s a little bitch?”

Bucky threw himself down and let the laughter take him. Sharon squawked.

“He learned it from you!” There was only one person who answered his ‘thank yous’ by calling him a little bitch. Sharon deserved this.

Over a cold breakfast, Bucky’s cheeks ached from smiling. When he looked over, Tony smiled back.

——— 

**A Dangerous Flirtation**

“You keep looking at him.”

Bucky didn’t respond. She wasn’t wrong. The chains seemed crueler by the hour and Tony’s sand shuffling gait irked him. He needed pants—and shoes. His bare foot parted the sand as he slid forward, skimming under the surface. From there his calf tensed and a line of muscle or tendon flexed in his thigh, running up the length of his golden skin before it dipped under the swaying edge of his shirt. 

He needed pants.

“He’s obviously got a perky—”

Bucky’s teeth clenched. “Sharon.” 

“I know. I know. Inappropriate, isn’t it?” Her smile was sharp. She was serious. 

She didn’t know, and he couldn’t tell her. If Tony didn’t want to wear chains, if he didn’t want to be here, if he wanted to suck the life from their bodies and take his pick of their trousers, there was no power that could stop him. 

It didn’t matter that Bucky kept looking. As soon as Tony stopped saving him, and healing his people, and wandering around half dressed, it would stop. And if not, it would stop when Bucky turned Tony over to Steve.

Sharon was right about that too. They needed to move faster. Bucky needed to complete his task here, round up the Eild and get them to safety, and then he needed to deliver Tony to Steve. They could tell Steve. The distant severity that had possessed him couldn’t blind him to the opportunity Tony presented, what an asset he could be. There was no itch this time, but he slipped his hand under the teeth at his shoulder to rub the skin there. The skull made him a monster, but he was still useful. Maybe it could be the same with Tony.

A smack landed on his skull free shoulder and Bucky tensed. But the skull didn’t react, the teeth didn’t dig punishment into him when he didn’t retaliate. A sullen sort of malevolence stirred groggily, but the skull remained quiet. “Stop staring at his legs!”

Bucky might have been staring. A little. 

His teeth clenched. Sharon had no right to be right about this. Not when the only person he could speak to about it was Tony who couldn’t speak back. Not when Monica paced them easily, walking backwards to gesture her way through a conversation with Kamala, no longer surprised at her swift recovery. Not when he was the only one with all the clues and still couldn’t figure out why Tony was here disrupting the limited allowance of Bucky’s cursed life, waking him up to old wants that he couldn’t have.

“He needs water.” Bucky marched away, letting his frustration out through his pounding feet.

If Tony wasn’t what he was, she’d be right, but she was mostly needling him because he hadn’t agreed to splitting the Eild. Getting to either the Bonell woods or the western plains meant facing the Scar at least twice, and double that if they all went to both taking the swiftest routes. He slipped his hand down behind him and ran his fingers over the edge of the shield. If they split up, no matter how many he sent with one group, he wouldn’t be there if they needed him. There were too many dangers—remnants, the Lenamari, the still unrevealed calamity. Tony. 

Was he making a mistake with Tony? 

His stomping approach announced him in a spray of sand and Tony looked up, his eyes crinkling. That was probably just the sun. Shit, he hoped he wasn’t wrong about Tony. He shoved the waterskin between them, contents sloshing from the force. 

“Thank you,” Tony said, stuffing the short phrase full of extra syllables. His tongue was too quick and did this fluttery thing that made vowels appear where there were none. Taking the waterskin, his fingers brushed against Bucky’s, a slow drag caressing over his first knuckle and thumb. He shouldn’t think about the way Tony’s too warm hands should have been unpleasant, dragging against him in the desert heat, or about the flick of vowels on the tip of Tony’s tongue. It would stop his heart from racing like he’d just scaled another giant snake.

Tony tipped his head back and swallowed. A sheen of sweat glistened on his throat in the sunlight. Bucky swallowed. There was a lot of swallowing happening. That was normal.

Bucky tore his gaze away. Tony’s lean athletic legs stretched out from under the flimsy curtain of the shirt he wore. Nowhere was safe. He should have stayed with Sharon, anything was better than this.

“Thank you,” Tony said again, handing the waterskin back. Bucky couldn’t risk another encounter of the fingering kind, so he shoved his hands back to the rim of the shield and shrugged.

“It’s not a good idea for us to split up.” He rubbed his thumb over the path Tony’s fingers had traced on his, then clenched his hands more firmly around the warm metal strapped to his pack. “But, we’d be faster.”

Tony said nothing, of course, but he nodded and waited for Bucky to continue.

“It’s a bad idea.” He was right about this. He was _right_. “But it’s also the only idea. We were attacked by a remnant the day you came to us.”

“Remnant,” Tony said with a squint.

“We were delayed, and I was wounded. You know all about that.” Bucky touched his hand to the skull at his shoulder. “You probably know a lot of things.” 

He chewed his lip and marked the angle of the sun. “No one from the valley will be able to speak to you, but I’m here to round up all the Eild. Someone will know your language.” The sand puffing beneath his feet faltered. “I wish you could understand this, but you can’t let anyone find out about your—” Bucky freed a hand and wiggled his fingers low by his belly, where the other Eild couldn’t see. 

Tony raised an eyebrow and one side of his mouth slipped up. Bucky snapped his hand down. He could never learn their language. He and Sharon together would be a nightmare.

“You don’t even know what you’re implying.” Safe with Tony’s ignorance, he flexed the arm. The bones shifted and moved with his muscles, the newest ones playing peek-a-boo through his flesh. “I’m cursed. The skull gets stronger every time I kill something.” He tapped the itchiest one. “This is from yesterday. I know it’s up to something evil. You won’t want to be around when it gets strong enough for whatever that is.”

Tony gave no indication he followed, but the mischief left his face and he focused on the bones crawling out of Bucky’s body. 

“I don’t know why I’m talking to you. It’s nice, though, to have a conversation that doesn’t turn into a fight or a hare-brained scheme. Guess all it takes is someone who can’t talk back.”

He held his hand out sideways at the level of his eye, resting his pinky against the line where sand met the sky. With his thumb folded down, the sun sat right above his fingers. They had a few more hours of walking before nightfall. A scabrous rock, pitted and hooked, scratched at the horizon. They should have passed it at midday. At their current pace, they’d be lucky to make it by nightfall. “I hate it when she’s right.” 

Tony’s eyes flicked from Bucky’s face to his hands to their surroundings, probably trying to tie Bucky’s flood of whining to something concrete.

With his next step, he jabbed his foot into the ground. "Sand," he said, indicating the wave that scattered in front of them. From there it was, sky, sun, rock, Eild. Whatever caught their attention, he pointed and gave their names to Tony. He felt like an asshole. But Tony smiled, eyes crinkling again, and repeated the words.

With a circling motion, Bucky rotated his hand to include both of them. “Friends?” 

“Bucky!” Sharon’s call saved his life. There were so, so many reasons an escaped Stark lighteater in chains and the cursed Eild keeping him that way couldn’t be friends.

Following her finger, he saw them. Shapes moved at the limit of his vision. A lot of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Almost called this **The Tor: Love and Blunder**
> 
> As always I welcome all kinds of feedback including love, questions, emojis, and concrit.  
> Come find me on [Tumblr](https://rise-up-ting-ting-like-glitter.tumblr.com) so we can shout about things!


End file.
